


A Long Cold Lonely Winter

by goodgirlfaith (boomersoonerash)



Series: 52 Weeks of Stories 2 [14]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Beth Greene Lives, Beth Lives, Cabins, Crushes, F/M, First Kiss, Kissing, Season/Series 05, Secret Crush, Unrequited Crush, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 01:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boomersoonerash/pseuds/goodgirlfaith
Summary: It's been a year since the fall of the prison and when Beth starts to doubt things she finds hope in someone unlikely.





	A Long Cold Lonely Winter

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Under The Stars

Looking up at the sky, Beth frowned as she thought of the group that she and Daryl had been separated from. A group that hadn't seen now in over a year. 

A tiny part of her afraid that those words Daryl had told her in the first few days were right. That she'd never see any of them again. She'd never see Maggie or Judith and that thought filled her with so much sadness because she wanted to see her sister again.

She wanted to see Judith again too because Judith was like her daughter. She'd raised her ever since Lori's death and of course she'd bonded with her like a mother would bond with a child. Though she knew deep down that Judith wasn't her daughter but still. She considered Judith like a daughter.

There was also one more person she really wanted to see again and that was Judith's father, Rick. A man who maybe she had held a childish schoolgirl crush on.

Something Beth always felt guilty for because of the fact that she was a child even if she was now over eighteen. She was a child still just slowly becoming a woman and Rick was a man who was still in ways grieving his wife.

But how could she not develop a crush on him? They'd grown close in her time watching Judith and Beth in her naive ways back at the prison used to imagine what it would be like to be a family with him and Carl and Judith.

They were just fantasies though because even back then Beth knew her father wouldn't have been okay with it. No one would have been okay with it.

Though now her father was dead. Beth had watched him being killed by the Governor and the others well they had probably died out there over the last year. 

Beth was no longer naive now, knew the chances of them surviving were slim. She and Daryl were lucky to even be alive as it were. They'd come across bad groups over the last year. Groups that did things she didn't agree with and groups that had tried to do things to her.

Would have if they had stayed much longer but Daryl had heard them talking about what they wanted to do to a girl as young as her and they had left in the middle of the night while everyone slept. Getting as far away as they could get.

After that they no longer tried to get in with groups. Instead they stayed by themselves and did their best to avoid large herds of walkers, which was also sometimes hard to do.

They'd had a close call last month during an awful snow storm. But somehow they had gotten away and found this very cabin they were staying in right now.

Now here Beth was a month later standing under the stars and thinking about the past while Daryl was inside making dinner. Beth not sure why she couldn't just stay inside to help him.

But she couldn't, she had to come outside and let her memories and her brain get the best of her. Remind her of all she had lost. The people that she had loved that had known it and the one who hadn't known it for obvious reasons.

Turning her head some when she heard the door open, Beth looked at Daryl with a brow raised.

"Dinner's ready," he told her and she only nodded her head.

"I'll be in, in a sec," she replied watching as he just paused in the doorway and she knew from the look on his face he wanted to say something to her. She almost expected him too really because during the past year they had grown closer.

Closer than what they had been at the prison anyway. Closer than they had been those first few days out in the wild.

Instead of saying anything though Daryl only shook his head before heading back inside. Leaving the door open a crack and Beth let out a sigh. Not sure if she was thankful Daryl didn't say anything or disappointed that he hadn't because maybe she wanted to talk about her thoughts.

Voice her fears that she now believed that after all this time those words he had said at the rundown shack may be right. That she'd never see anyone she cared about again. That they were probably the only two left alive from the prison group.

All they'd have was each other from now on.

Sighing Beth finally turned on her heel and headed inside. Her stomach growling slightly to let her know she was hungry and that her decision to head back inside now was a good one.

*****

Leaving the bathroom where she had showered after supper that night, Beth paused when she saw Daryl outside the door. Almost as if he had been waiting on her to leave the bathroom and maybe he had been.

"What were you thinking about earlier?" Daryl asked and yeah he had been waiting for her and obviously he was now voicing the question he had wanted to ask her when she had been on the porch.

"Who said I was thinking about anything?" Beth asked not answering his question. Instead she had chosen to ask her own.

Daryl narrowing his eyes at her some, "Don't bullshit me," he told her in a stern voice. "I've been with you long enough girl. I know when you're thinking. You run off to be alone then," he stated and Beth only looked away from his gaze with a blush.

She had no clue that Daryl had figured her out so well. Though maybe she should have.

Daryl was good at observing things and figuring people out right away. Usually, except with that one group that had wanted to do things with her.

Obviously they had put up a good enough front that he hadn't seen through them until it was almost too late.

"Fine," Beth relented knowing she was going to have to tell him. Otherwise they'd be here all night. "I was thinking about the others," she stated and she knew from the look that crossed his face that he knew who she meant. "I was thinking you're probably right. They're probably all dead by now and I'll never see any of them again."

A small frown crossed Daryl's face then at her words. Like her lost hope and optimism hurt him.

Which Beth knew was silly because why would he care if she was no longer a girl who had hope and optimism. They may have been close but they weren't that close still.

They were nowhere near being best friends. They were just allies who depended on each other to survive and sometimes to lend an ear when the other needed to talk. 

That would always be as far as their bond went with each other.

"I think you're wrong," Daryl retorted and his words surprised her. "I think they are still out there," he spoke sounding so firm and she half wondered what had changed his mind. What had made him so optimistic now when before he hadn't been.

He'd been the one who cruelly told her she'd never see any of them again. Just like he hadn't really understood how someone like her had made it as far as she had in a world like this.

He probably still didn't because she was no Carol or Michonne or Maggie but she was strong in her own way. Strong in ways the other women weren't and that's what had helped her survive.

That was what still helped her to survive. Even if she had lost her hope in some things.

"And what changed your mind about that?" Beth questioned as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You were the one who told me that we'd never see them again. That I'd never see them again," she said reminding him of his words that he had spoken in anger.

Words that replayed in her head off and on for the past year. Even if she had forgiven him for those words.

Forgiving was easy, it was forgetting that was hard to do.

Daryl went silent at her words and this time it was him who looked away from her. His shoulders shrugging which made something inside of her a tiny bit angry.

How could he say what he had and not tell her what had changed his mind?

"Don't do this Daryl," Beth spoke again. "Don't say what you did and not tell me what changed your mind. What makes you think they are still alive? What gave you that hope again?'

Daryl finally looked back at her and the way he looked at her, all intense made a shiver run down her spine. "You know," he said as he kept his eyes on her and no she really didn't know.

"No I don't," Beth told him as he just kept looking at her. His intense gaze only getting worse and it was then that something clicked in her brain.

Daryl meant her. She was the reason he had changed his mind and had hope now. She was probably the reason they were even staying in this cabin as long as they were because hadn't she mentioned once that she just wanted to stay somewhere and live there for as long as they could.

Make roots like they had at the prison even if it was only just the two of them together. Two people bonded by being alone on their own.

"Oh," Beth muttered out softly as she just looked at Daryl all wide eyed. Surprised by the realization though she shouldn't have been that surprised.

Daryl just continued to look at her. The silence between them feeling comfortable and she kept staring back at him, something seemed to be drawing her body closer to his. Like he was one end of a magnet and she was another and they were being pulled together.

Beth closing her eyes when their lips finally crashed together in an almost chaste kiss. Not her first kiss because that had been given to Jimmy and then at the prison even during her crush on Rick she had dated Zach. Kissed and made out with Zach numerous times but maybe a bit naively after his death she had hoped her next kiss would have been with Rick.

Though she wasn't disappointed at all in this moment that her next kiss wasn't with Rick. It almost felt right kissing Daryl.

When they both pulled away from each other, Beth swallowed hard as a blush coated her cheeks.

"I'm sorry," Daryl apologized softly. "We shouldn't...I shouldn't have done that," he told her and before she could say anything to him he was gone in a flash. 

Gone outside to keep watch because it was his night to do that. She had taken last night.

Shaking her head, Beth finally moved heading to her bedroom though she wasn't sure she would sleep. She had too much on her mind now. Like her kiss with Daryl and the fact that she had changed his mind. She had made him have hope.


End file.
